It is not hard to determine this question. The sword in a constitute
commonwealth is given to the judge supreme or subordinate; (Rom. xiii. 4;) "He
beareth not the sword in vain" in the empire. The use of armour is restricted
to the emperor by a positive law; so the law saith, Armorum officia nisi
jussu principis sunt interdicta, (lib. de Cod. de Lege. 1.) Imperat
Valentinian nulli, nobis inconsultis, usus armorum tribuatur, (ad 1.
Jul. Mai. l. 3.) War is a species and a particular, the sword is a
general.

Assert. — 1. The power of the sword, by God's law, is not
proper and peculiar to the king only, but given by God to the inferior judges.
1. Because the inferior judge is essentially a judge no less than the king, as
is proved, therefore he must bear the sword. (Rom. xiii. 4.) 2. Not Moses only,
but the congregation of Israel, had power of life and death, and so of the
sword; Num. xxxv. 12, the man-slayer shall not die, "until he stand before the
congregation in judgment;" ver. 24, "Then the congregation shall judge between
the slayer and the avenger of. blood;" Deut. xxii. 18, "The elders of the city
shall take that man and chastise him;" ver. 21, "The men of the city shall
stone her with stones;" Deut. xvii. 5; xix. 12, 13, v. 18-21; xxi. 19, "Then
shall his father and his mother bring him to the elders of his city;" ver. 21,
"And the men of the city shall stone him with stones;" 1 Kings xxi. 11. The
elders and nobles that were inhabitants in his city stoned Naboth. 3. Inferior
judges are condemned as murderers, who have shed innocent blood, (Isa. i. 12;
Psal. xciv. 5, 6; Jer. xxii. 3; Ezek. xxii. 12. 27; Hosea vi. 8; Zeph. iii.
1-3,) therefore, they must have the power of the sword, hence, upon the same
grounds.

Assert. 2. — That the king only hath the power of war, and
raising armies must be but a positive civil law. For, 1. By divine right, if
the inferior judges have the sword given to them of God, then have they also
power of war, and raising armies. 2. All power of war that the king hath is
cumulative, not privative, and not destructive, but given for the safety of the
kingdom; as therefore the king cannot take from one particular man the power of
the sword for natural seif-preservation, because it is the birthright of life,
neither can the king take from a community and kingdom a power of rising in
arms for their own defence. If an army of Turks shall suddenly invade the land,
and the king's express consent cannot be had, (tor it is essentially involved
in the office of the king, as king, that all the power of the sword that he
hath be for their safety,) or if the king should, as a man, refuse his consent,
and interdict and discharge the land to rise in arms, yet they have his royal
consent, though they want his personal consent, in respect that his office
obligeth him to command them to rise in arms. 3. Because no king, no civil
power can take away nature's birthright of self-defence from any man, or a
community of men. 4. Because if a king should sell his kingdom, and invite a
bloody conqueror to come in with an army of men to destroy his people, impose
upon their conscience an idolatrous religion, they may lawfully rise against
that army without the king's consent; for, though royalists say, they need not
come in asinine patience, and offer their throats to cut-throats, but may flee,
yet several things hindereth a flight. 1. They are obliged by virtue of the
fifth commandment to remain, and, with their sword, defend the cities of the
Lord and the king (2 Sam. x. 12; 1 Chron. xix. 13); for if to defend our
country and children, and the church of God, from unjust invaders and
cut-throats, by the sword, be an act of charity that God and the law of nature
requireth of a people, as is evident, (Prov. xxiv. 11,) and if the fifth
commandment oblige the land to defend their aged parents and young children
from these invaders, and if the sixth commandment lay on us the like bond, all
the land are to act works of mercy and charity, though the king unjustly
command the contrary, except, royalists say, that we are not to perform the
duties of the second table commanded by God, if an earthly king forbid us; and
if we exercise not acts of mercy towards our brethren, when their life is in
hazard, to save them, we are murderers; and so men may murder their neighbour
if the king command them so to do; this is like the court-faith. 2. The king's
power of wars is for the safety of his people; if he deny his consent to their
raising of arms till they be destroyed, he playeth the tyrant, not the king,
and the Law of nature will necessitate them either to defend themselves,
(seeing flight of all in that case is harder than death,) else they must be
guilty of self-murder. Now, the king's commandment of not rising in arms, at
best, is positive and against the nature of his office, and it floweth then
from him as from a man, and so must be far inferior to the natural commandment
of God, which commandeth self-preservation, if we would not be guilty of
self-murder, and of obeying men rather than God; so Althusius (Polit. c. 25, n.
9), Halicarnas. (1. 4, Antiq. Rom.), Aristot. (Polit. l. 3, c. 3). 3. David
took Goliath's sword and became a captain, a captain to an host of armed men in
the battle, and fought the battles of the Lord, (1 Sam. xxv. 28,) and this
Abigail by the spirit of prophecy, as I take it, saith, (ver. 29-31; 1 Sam.
xxii. 2; 1 Chron. xii. 1-3; xvii. 18, 21, 22,) not only without Saul's consent,
but against king Saul, as he was a man, but not against him as he was king of
Israel. 4. If there be no king, or the King be minor, or an usurper, as
Athaliah, be on the throne, the kingdom may law. fully make war without the
king, as (Judg. xx.) the children of Israel, — four hundred thousand
footmen that drew sword, went out to war against the children of Benjamin.
Judah had the power of the sword when Josiah was but eight years old, in the
beginning of his reign, (2 Kings xxii. 1, 2,) and before Jehoash was crowned
king, and while he was minor, (2 Kings xi.,) there were captains of hundreds in
arms raised by Jehoiada, and the people of Judah, to defend the young king, it
cannot be said that this is more extraordinary than that it is extraordinary
for kings to die, and in the interregnum, wars, in an ordinary
providence, may fall out in these kingdoms, where kings go by election; and for
kings to fall to be minors, captives, tyrannous. And I shall be of that opinion
that Mr Symmons, who holdeth that royal birth is equivalent to divine unction,
must also hold, that election is not equivalent to divine unction; for both
election and birth cannot be of the same validity, the one being natural, the
other a matter of free choice, which shall infer that kings by election are
less properly, and analogically only, kings; and so Saul was not properly a
king, for he was king by election; but I conceive that rather kings by birth
must be less properly kings, because the first king by God's institution, being
the mould of all the rest, was by election (Deut. xvii. 18-20).

5. If the estates create the king, and make this man king, not that man,
(as 13 clear from Deut. xvii. 18, and 2 Chron. v. 1-4,) they give to him the
power of the sword, and the power of war, and the militia; and I shall judge it
strange and reasonless, that the power given to the king, by the parliament or
estates of a free kingdom, (such as Scotland is acknowledged by all to be,)
should create, regulate, limit, abridge, yea, and annul that power that created
itself. Hath God ordained a parliamentary power to create a royal power of the
sword and war, to be placed in the king, the parliament's creature, for the
safety of parliament and kingdom, which yet is destructive of itself? Dr Ferne
saith that "the king summoneth a parliament, and giveth them power to be a
parliament, and to advise and counsel him;" and, in the meantime, Scripture
saith (Deut. xvii. 18-20; 1 Sam. x. 20-25; 2 Sam. v. 1-4) that the parliament
createth the king. Here is admirable reciprocation of creation in policy! Shall
God make the mother to destroy the daughter? The parliamentary power that
giveth crown, militia, sword, and all to the king, must give power to the king
to use sword and war for the destruction of the kingdom, and to annul all the
power of parliaments, to make, unmake parliaments, and all parliamentary power,
what more absurd?

Obj. 1. — (Symmons, p. 57). These phrases, (1 Sam. ix. 1,)
"When kings go forth to war," and (Luke xiv. 31) "What king going forth to
war," speak to my conscience, that both offensive and defensive war are in the
king's hand.

Ans. — It is not much to other men what is spoken to any
man's conscience by phrase and customs; for by this no states, where there be
no kings, but government by the best, or the people, as in Holland, or in other
nations, can have power of war; for what time of year shall kings go to war who
are not kings? and because Christ saith, "A certain householder delivered
talents to his servants." will this infer to any conscience, that none but a
householder may take usury? And when he saith, "If the good man of the house
knew at what hour the thief would come, he would watch;" shall it follow the
son or servant may not watch the house, but only the good man?

Obj. 2. — (Ferne, p. 95.) The natural body cannot move but
upon natural principles; and so neither can the politic body move in war, but
upon politic reasons from the prince, which must direct by law.

Ans. 1. — This may well be retorted, the politic head cannot
then move but upon politic reasons; and so the king cannot move to wars but by
the law, and that is by consent of Parliament; and no law can principle the
head to destroy the members. 2. If an army of cut-throats rise to destroy the
kingdom, because the king is behind in his place in doing his duty, how can the
other judges, the states and parliament, be accessory to murder committed by
them in not raising armies to suppress such robbers? Shall the inferior judges
be guilty of innocent blood because the king will not do his duty? 3. The
politic body ceaseth no more to renounce the principles of sinless nature in
self-defence, because it is a politic body, and subject to a king, than it can
leave off to sleep, eat, and drink; and there is more need of politic
principles to the one than the other. 4. The parliaments and estates of both
kingdoms move in these wars by the king's laws, and are a formal politic body
in themselves.

Obj. 2. — The ground of the present wars against the king,
saith Dr Ferne, (sect. 4, p. 13,) is false, to wit, that the parliament is
co-ordinate with the king; but so the king shall not be supreme, the
parliament's consent is required to an act of supremacy, but not to a denial of
that act. And there can no more (saith Arnisæus, de jure majestatis,
c. 3; in quo consistat essen. majest. c. 3, n. 1; and an jur.
majest. separ., &c. c. 2, n. 2) be two equal and co-ordinate supreme
powers than there can be two supreme Gods; and multitudo deorum est nullitas
deorum, many gods infer no gods.

Ans. 1. — If we consider the fountain power, the king is
subordinate to the parliament, and not co-ordinate; for the constituent is
above that which is constituted. If we regard the derived and executive power
in parliamentary acts, they make but a total and complete sovereign power; yet
so as the sovereign power of the parliament, being habitually and underived a
prime and fountain-power, (for I do not here separate people and parliament,)
is perfect without the king, for all parliamentary acts, as is clear, in that
the parliament make kings, make laws, and raise armies, when either the king is
minor, captived, tyrannous, or dead; but royal power parliamentary without the
parliament, is null, because it is essentially but a part of the parliament,
and can work nothing separated from the parliament, no more than a hand cut off
from the body can write; and so here we see two supremes co-ordinate. Amongst
infinite things there cannot be two, because it involveth a contradiction, that
an infinite thing can be created, for then it should it be finite; but a royal
power is essentially a derived and created power and supreme, secundum
quid, only in relation to single men, but not in relation to the community;
it is always a creature of the community, with leave of the royalist. 2. It is
false, that to an act of parliamentary supremacy the consent of the king is
required, for it is repugnant that there can be any parliamentary judicial act
without the parliament, but there may be without the king. 3. More false it is,
that the king hath a negative voice in parliament; then he shall be sole judge,
and the parliament, the king's creator and constituent, shall be a cypher.

Obj. 3.. — (Arnisæus, de jur. maj. de potest.
armorum, c. 5, n. 4.) The people are mad and furious, therefore
supreme majesty cannot be secured, and rebels suppressed, and public peace
kept, if the power of armour be not in the king's hand only.

Ans. 1. — To denude the people of armour, because they may
abuse the prince, is to expose them to violence and oppression, unjustly; for
one king may more easily abuse armour than all the people; one man may more
easily fail than a community. 2. The safety of the people is far to be
preferred before the safety of one man, though he were two emperors, one in the
east, another in the west, because the emperor is ordained of God for the good
and safety of the people. (1 Tim. ii. 2.) 3. There can be no inferior judges to
bear the sword, as God requireth, (Rom, xiii. 4; Deut. i. 15, 16; Chron. xix.
6, 7,) and the king must be sole judge, if he only have the sword, and all
armour monopolised to himself.

Obj. 4. — The causes of war, saith Mr Symmons, (sect. 4, p.
9,) should not be made known to the subjects, who are to look more to the
lawful call to war from the prince than to the cause of the war.

Ans. 1. — The parliament and all the judges and nobles are
subjects to royalists, if they should make war and shed blood upon blind
obedience to the king, not inquiring either in causes of law or fact, they must
resign their consciences to the king. 2. The king cannot make unlawful war to
be lawful by any authority royal, except he could rase out the sixth
commandment; therefore subjects must look more to the causes of war than to the
authority of the king; and this were a fair way to make parliaments of both
kingdoms set up popery by the sword, and root out the reformed religion upon
the king's authority, as the lawful call to war, not looking to the causes of
war.